Microwave Barometric Radar and Sounder (MBARS)

Atmospheric surface pressure and pressure profiles are essential variables in weather modeling and forecasting. Pressure gradients generate atmospheric motion and are essential to the air-sea heat exchange feedbacks within the planetary boundary layer (PBL) that lead to convective storms and heavy precipitation. Despite the importance of pressure and pressure gradients on meso-, synoptic-, and global-scale weather patterns, current technology relies almost entirely on buoy measurements over the majority of the ocean. These measurements are too sparse to capture pressure gradients of even many synoptic scale events, and leave models starved of information. Data assimilation studies have demonstrated that ocean surface pressure data contain a more useful information about the large-scale atmospheric circulations than observations of surface wind or temperature. Research at the NASA/GSFC Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) shows that assimilation of a potential wide-swath satellite-based surface pressure retrieval product significantly impacts forecasts of ocean winds and temperature from the PBL through the mid troposphere. This joint team of NASA/GSFC, NASA/LaRC, and Remote Sensing Solutions proposes to develop a Microwave Barometric Radar and Sounder (MBARS) for surface air pressure and pressure profiles, especially over oceans. MBARS is a combined active/passive microwave sensor in the O2 absorption V-band (64-70 GHz). This instrument consists of an innovative scanning multi-channel differential absorption radar (DAR) to provide an estimation of total atmospheric column oxygen content and thus the surface air pressure. MBARS also provides radiometric temperature profiling that enables vertical pressure profiling based on the hypsometric relationship between pressure and temperature. The proposed system leverages significant Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program investments, including a software-defined radar/radiometer (SDRr) and a highly efficient power amplifier. A future spaceflight instrument may also leverage one of several SBIR technologies advancing deployable antennas. Various cutting-edge communication and radar technologies used in the sensor development enable the exacting precision and stability requirements for pressure retrieval. The proposed effort will develop and demonstrate the innovative MBARS sensor on the NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft. This three-year Instrument Incubator Program (IIP) Instrument Development and Demonstration (IDD) project will start on February 1, 2022, and end on January 31, 2025. The sensor development, laboratory experiment, and flight test will raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the pressure measurement concept from 3 to 5, paving the way for future spaceborne missions on SmallSat platforms.

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